Wilhelm Voigt: Captain von Köpenick

One of the oldest, most frequent and most successful devices of the hoaxer
is imposture, the acquiring of undeserved prestige by which to make easier
the attainment of his ends. Wear the proper clothes, assume the correct
“airs,” and your awestricken victims will not detect the joke,
swindle, or fraud.

As a master of bluff none ever excelled Wilhelm Voigt, a cobbler remembered
by the sobriquet of Captain von Köpenick (after the small suburb of
Berlin where, October 17, 1906, he executed his famous coup).

Masquerading in the uniform of a Prussian army captain, Voigt, an
ex-convict, placed himself at the head of a detachment of grenadiers,
marched to the town hall, arrested the burgomaster, examined the municipal
accounts, seized ready cash to the sum of £200, commandeered
telephone and telegraph services “for state business,” and sent
the burgomaster in custody to Berlin military headquarters.

When, nine days later, Voigt was arrested and, within six weeks, sentenced
to four years’ imprisonment, the attention of the entire world was
directed to alleged abuses in the German prison system. Either because of
the tremendous public opinion which was aroused or, as some say, because of
being amused, Kaiser Wilhelm pardoned Voigt by imperial edict despite the
impostor’s record of twenty-seven years in prison for petty offenses.

Six years later, according to an Associated Press dispatch which appeared
in the Atlanta Constitution, German newspapers received
notices of Voigt’s death. In orthodox fashion they reviewed his
life and unwittingly gave valuable publicity to a vaudeville company to
which [the quite alive] Captain von Köpenick belonged. In 1932 a
motion picture, Der Hauptmann von Köpenick, starring Max
Adalbert, was based on Voigt’s escapade.

December 19, 1998: Radically non-violent undercover anarchist Monica Lewinsky successfully throws the U.S. government into chaos as U.S. president Bill Clinton is impeached. (See Guerrilla Hacks for more indirect action)